Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: kasperl on April 30, 2003, 07:35:00 am
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wouldit be possible to make a reliability factor setting for ships and weapons?.
i mean a number in the tbl from wich the sourcegenerates random defects to the ship, if thereliabilty islow, the ship will start to behave strangely, like not responding properly, weapons jamming, afterburner refusing/damaging the engines, shileds flickering, sensors scrambling, comm dropping out, up to sudden reactor overlaods which are fatal.
weapons would just jam, or suddenly all energy would be drained, or the weapons subsystem might take damage.
i think this would be a very nice feature, especially in "less then ideal" envirements, basicly, it's to simulate the wad of ducttape on the control panel.
now, the question is, is this possible without to much work?
note, i'm no modder so i don't know what the bets place to set such a value is.
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Well the best place for a weapons reliability factor would be in that weapon's tbl entry.
I like the idea, would be useful if you had old ships left over from the Great War, which are in a state of disrepair.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
Well the best place for a weapons reliability factor would be in that weapon's tbl entry.
I like the idea, would be useful if you had old ships left over from the Great War, which are in a state of disrepair.
only one question remains then: is it possible?
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actually, if it were implemented I would want a 'set-reliability' sexp
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Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER
actually, if it were implemented I would want a 'set-reliability' sexp
sepxs are in mission AFAIK, so what if you'd want that ship to be super, except for the reliability?
from what i know, ht best way would be a TBL thing, with a FRED overrride.
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im not explaing my self very well... again:rolleyes:
what I meant was what you said - tables, with a sexp in fred to overide...
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This'd be hell cool for combat evaluation missions - you've got this uber powerful ship that should be toasting Shivans like nobodiesbusiness - but they've not got the Primary Weapons Fire Control circuitry quite bug free just yet - and I thought Bob was supposed to be installing those Afterburner Regulators!
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Furthermore you could use it to have uber ships with a very large Achillies' heel.
"Meet the GTF Achillies ladies and gentlemen. The Achillies is far more powerful than any two other fighters we have. The only problem is after about 15 minutes or so the relays burn out taking down the scanner, secondaries and afterburner.
Terran command has given up on her but she's yours to fly if you're willing to risk it" :D
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Guys, I had this idea a good long time ago, except it wasnt reliability (well it sorta was), it was about load. Not-so-heavy load things, like nav control and comms would be unafected, and would cause no problems, but things like burners, energy weapons, shields, etc. The reactor could have a reserve, and all items would drain from the reserve as necessary. Therefor, you could have max shield, max weapons, and max engines at the same time, although it wouldnt be a good idea when under stress. When the burners are used, they drain the reserve normally. When the burners stop being used, they fill up normally, except they fill up from the reactor's reserve. Same thing with weapons and shields. When the reactor reserve has run out, then the chargings demand the reactor itself. Once that happens, the reactor loses it's integrity, and all kinds of crazy stuff happens. Example being, you're piloting your 8 gunned fighter (whats it called?) and you're using max weapons recharge, max shield recharge, and max engine recharge. At a point, you enter engagement. You hit the burners, fire the kaysers, and get shield hits all at the same time. Your reserve drains quickly until finally you rely on the generator. at this point, some of your gunmounts (random) dont work for that shot, the burners start fluctuating speed, and one of your shield quadrants will rise and fall sporaticly. Once the generator integrity drops below maybe 65% your HUD will start to flicker, kinda like EMP effects, and some of your systems will fail entirely. At around 35% you start getting serious subsystem damage and the HUD/comms/flight control would fail (very bad). At around 10% you die due to reactor core failure. Anyway, whatever your integrity is at, is that much power it gives to the reserve, like if it's 50% it will fill up about half the speed as it would if it were at 100%. Also, the reactor would take pretty long to repair, maybe 10 seconds for each 3 percent or something, and sometimes you have to play dead for the reserve to recharge, because it's draining faster than filling because of reactor integrity. I think that'd be awesome.
Another thing I was thinking of would be localized subsystem integrity. Say you have a weapon that produces a HUGE amount of heat, and it fires quickly. It puts plenty of stress on the subsystem. If you keep firing that weapon a prolonged amount of time, your weapons subsystem will be damaged a little. Keep firing it then, and it damages it faster. Keep firing it even then, it'll lose integrity faster than you can spell "Antidisestablishmentarianism". Same thing happens when you keep hitting the burners, or keep charging your shields too fast.
So, what do you think of those ideas, guys?
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ok, what about this, youmake a system with both TBL and SEXP settings for reliability, plus Scuddie system, but you just make the sourcelower reliabilty when the reactor takes the strain.
good/bad?
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Sounds to me like what you want is a sexp that lets you suck all the power out of a subsystem or the entire deal for a short period of time. Between that and disabling subsystems you'd have basically what you're talking about here, and you could probably use the code wrapped aroun the Lamprey's effect to help generate the former. A table flag would be nice, but for one thing it would require a proper random value generator, and for another could cause failures at extremely inconvenient times- times when you, as mission designer, DO want the ship running. Some situation like your engines randomly blowing out at the onset of the Lion's Den mission comes to mind.
For the guns, throw a degree of inaccuracy (let them fire in an arc rather than along a vertex, so you can get machine-gun spray and such if you so wish) along with the sexp'd jams and occasional blowouts, and it'll be good. That, too, might require a random number generator, but I dunno.
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I have made a feild of fire code that gives you a cone of fire rather than directly in front of you at all times
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Cool.
Would definitely say something about "reliability" if you get a ratty old Prometheus that fires at 20* to what you're shooting at.:D
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
Sounds to me like what you want is a sexp that lets you suck all the power out of a subsystem or the entire deal for a short period of time. Between that and disabling subsystems you'd have basically what you're talking about here, and you could probably use the code wrapped aroun the Lamprey's effect to help generate the former. A table flag would be nice, but for one thing it would require a proper random value generator, and for another could cause failures at extremely inconvenient times- times when you, as mission designer, DO want the ship running. Some situation like your engines randomly blowing out at the onset of the Lion's Den mission comes to mind.
i think a random number generator should be easy, but i never touched C, let alone C++, so i'm no sure.
and as i said, there should be an override SEXP, so for those mission critical points reliability can be restored.
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this could be really interesting and cool...
if it could be done, a reliability variable should apply to each particular system in the craft - and those systems should be equitable to what can be damaged on a craft...
i am not that well versed with FS2 yet, so what i mean is if damagable systems are:
weapons
flight control
engines
targeting computer
then each of those should have its own reliability factor, rather than a random system being affected by a failure. the reason is that if a new version of a craft is created, it can be rock solid on everything except the new component which could be a new weapon system... it is not fair to have the rest of the rock solid craft affected because of a new weapon system that fails to operate reliably... this would be more granular and complex than the singe realiability variable, but more realistic as well.
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that would be good as well, actually, it would be better.
now, we need a coder to take a look at his, any takers?
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To psuedo-quote Star Trek: Generations:
"All the upgraded stuff will be installed... on Tuesday."
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There was an afterburner thread that dealt with heat in almost the same sense. Once again I have to point at a game that has used this kind of simulation for quite a while - Mechwarrior.
Blow ups and failures shouldn't be random, instead it should be a factor calculated from the use of the system.
The engine should "throw a dice" every once in a while, if the thrown ammount is smaller than the reliability factor *or bigger if you want to model it with %* than the system should have a failure depending on the value of the throw.
By using d20+2 or such throws you could prevent failures in ordinary situations.
Players should also be given a chance to truly drive the systems over the limit.
Say you've got a big red button - safety override.
Otherwise the coputer would prevent overdrive - or shut down the ship in certain cases.
Heat management can be easily incorporated into this model.
A new set of hud elements could be used - displayed next to the damage list, listing heat and use of systems, it should only pop up during overdrive and or emergencies.
After all a blown engine has a lot smaller heat treshold.
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Space is VERY cold.... an excellent heat sink
Anyway...TONS of good ideas in this thread...:D
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Space is VERY cold.... an excellent heat sink
Anyway...TONS of good ideas in this thread...:D
But in space you don't have a medium to dissipate heat by mere termo equalisation - all the heat has to be expelled through radiation.
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Proper design in space can make it so that you can expel quite a large amount of heat without going boom- basically, just put the hot stuff towards the outside. There's no dissipative medium, so heat doesn't come off quite so easily, but when it does it doesn't stick around.
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Actually space is both very hot and very cold IIRC- very hot when you're in the radiation of a star, very cold when you're not.
In fact I remember reading somewhere about a power plant for satellites that used this theory- part of the plant would be in the sun, and this would use the radiation to boil water and power a turbine. The steam would then pass to behind the satelite where the cold would cool it down again, ready to be passed back to the front. Just like a nuclear reactor, except using a star as the fuel :)
Anyways this just means that the heat sinks can't be unshielded from the sun, or they'd be about as useful as a condom machine in the vatican, and would in fact, ADD heat to the system.
The Claw, your annoying local reality blokey ;)
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Ever noticed that powerplants hadn't changed a bit since the 19'th century....
You've got the power of a star and you use it....
....to boil water...bah, tell me what's inefficent if that's not?
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Claw, I have no idea where you got that from...
Now, I'm a science freak myself and I don't think your argument stands...
The temperature in space is below zero...
And the vacuum isn't completely without particles.
And people don't tend to fly close to stars ... radiation and stuff..
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Claw, I have no idea where you got that from...
Now, I'm a science freak myself and I don't think your argument stands...
The temperature in space is below zero...
And the vacuum isn't completely without particles.
And people don't tend to fly close to stars ... radiation and stuff..
Everytime you comment on science I'm reminded about that saying about a little knowledge being dangerous. :D
Of course things get hot when directly in the gaze of the sun. What do you think causes a comet to grow a tail when it gets close to the sun? Pressure from the solar wind? :lol:
The temperature on the moon rises and falls depending on if it is in direct sunlight or not. Have a look at this site (http://www.earthsky.com/2002/es020427.html) and this one (http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/educ/science/2001/11-09-00.htm) if you don't believe me.:D
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I'm merly saying you're exagerating.....
And tht it is very cold in space....
AND thatwe are off topic -> relyability factor, remember?
Let's just leave this discussion for another time? :nod:
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Originally posted by TrashMan
I'm merly saying you're exagerating.....
And tht it is very cold in space....
AND thatwe are off topic -> relyability factor, remember?
Let's just leave this discussion for another time? :nod:
Who's exaggerating? Me? This is my first post on the topic and I only posted cause you were completely wrong but rubbishing someone who had posted an idea that I was interested in hearing more about.
Secondly you should either take your lumps and admit that you were wrong or not post anything further about the temperature of space
Don't reiterate your claim that it's very cold in space even though I've already proved that things depend on the strength of the sunlight at your location and then try to hide behind the whole thing being off topic so that I can't post to tell you that you're wrong again. If it was off-topic you shouldn't have posted about it in your reply.
So as to make it on topic we can use this whole sunlight effect as multiplier set in FRED. That way you could say that in certain missions the reliability of your ship is lower than in others because of the extra effort of trying to get rid of the heat from the sun.
You could also use it to make the ship less reliable in certain nebula conditions.
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Woah....stand down man....
Why so agressive?
1. I stand by my claim, but I have no wish for this disscusion tobe draged on to infinity. I'm to tired to argue anyway...
2. I'm not rubisshing anyone, merly stating my oppinion.
3.People often stray off-topic. Those with some sense in their heads return back to it...
4. Good idea on the sunlight effect.
5. As far as I'm concerned, the space/heat..etc.. topic is over!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Woah....stand down man....
Why so agressive?
1. I stand by my claim, but I have no wish for this disscusion tobe draged on to infinity. I'm to tired to argue anyway...
2. I'm not rubisshing anyone, merly stating my oppinion.
3.People often stray off-topic. Those with some sense in their heads return back to it...
4. Good idea on the sunlight effect.
5. As far as I'm concerned, the space/heat..etc.. topic is over!
Basically if you want to discuss something where you have a different opinion from me I have no problem. I'm quite happy to respect anyones opinions and beliefs.
However whether space is cold or not isn't an opinion it's a scientific fact.
If you want to discuss scientific fact you'd better back up your arguement with solid fact if you're going to claim that I've got it wrong. Find me a reputable source that says the moon is cold during daylight and I'll be fine with it but don't simply dismiss my arguement and tell me that I'm wrong without anything to back it up.
Anyway I'll also agree to leave it at this point. Everyone else can make up their own minds on the temperature of space. :)
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Well, well...
You can drag about it for a while but, let's settle this.
With facts out of a physics lexicon/textbook and whatever I managed to learn during six years.
What's heat?
The definition says that heat is the average kinetic energy the particles have that make up the object. It goes for gases as well.
In space there is virtually nothing!!!
*actually that's a lie, there are all kind of praticles goin around thanks to the stars, but photons aren't to be treated as acouple of heavy protons, they "weigh" a lot less (please don't get into this I know that you can't really say that a photon has mass).*
So tell me how hot is it in space???...
After all the very question is "dumb" if you think about it.
Space can't have any heat, or temperature, because there's nothing to carry that kinetic energy.
That's why we say that only space is close to absolute zero *minus 273 celsius or 0 kelvin*, becasue if you were to ever measure that temperature everything would be without kinetic energy, ergo there would be no heat.
So in space an object can have its heat of its own, but not the environment.
Radiation - all forms of radiation, such as light , gamma rays, alpha particles *He2+*, neutron stream whatever else - generates heat when it hits an atom. For that instance the atom of a ship's hull or it's radiator.
The ammount depends on the radiation which depends on the distance form the source. So if you're in Earth orbit you're in trouble, 'cause the radiation is enough to keep the planet's ecosphere going even with the atmosphere's dampening.
However each material has its own reflection factor. That's why NASA paints all their equipment white - so they reflect as much radiation as possible.
Moreover objects normally radiate. A black object *physics term an object that only emits radiation but does not reflect any.* radiates on all frequencies, but with a different amplitude. The amplitiude-frequency curve's shape, the amplitudes and position of its maximum depend on the temperature, and the temperature alone.
So hot objects radiate more and on higher freuencies. Every object around you radiates - but not necessarily on visible wavelenghts.
The trick in space is to give off more heat than what you accumulate. So you need big heatsinks in the in the dark side of the ship *the one not facing a star*.
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Yeah. I was going to get into the whole vaccum has no temperature thing but I decided that it would just make lots of people go "eh? :confused: " unless I gave a long explaination like you did :) (one which I couldn't be bothered to write). An explaination explaining how objects in space could be hot or cold was sufficient for me :)
Plus once you try to explain that you're Heisenberging up the system by trying to measure the temperature of a vacuum (i.e the action of trying to measure the temperature changes the result by a significant amount because the thermometer can't be at absolute zero) you lose the rest of the people who didn't study physics :lol:
If you notice I tried to be careful to never say space was cold or hot cause as you say it's neither. :)
BTW if Heisenberging isn't a word it damn well should be. :lol:
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At the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (where hopefully I'll end up after my graduation form high school) they start education of quantum physics by writting Heisenberg's formula on the board.
Then the following mantra is proposed:
"You don't understan this.
Neither do I.
Nor Heisenberg.
But you'll get used to it."
:D
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ok, poeple, how interesting physics may be, i'd like to know wheter or not a reliability factor is posible, i don't really need to know the exact temperature in space.
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So we all agree that space is cold, and that the sun heats up objects in the vicinity....
BUT! ... A sun can heat up only objects "close" to it...
The regions in our solar system a bit farther away are f***in cold..
And the next closest star is 20 mil.(or so) light years away...
20 mil. light yers of cold space...
But to get back on topic (and stay there, I hope), that should be posible...Would require a lot of coding dough....
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Um Trashman I did mention that radiation is declining by the square of the distance.
As for reliability, it shouldn't be that much coding since there are already things with similar effects, though I not sure, so you can be right.
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You know. Now that the Random SEXP has been fixed you could achieve a crude version now with a repeating event and the sabotage subsystem SEXP :)
All you'd need to do to make the proper version work is do the same thing for every ship based on a new table entry. It would be crude but it could work :)
Originally posted by TrashMan
And the next closest star is 20 mil.(or so) light years away...
:rolleyes: Try 4.2 for Proxima Centuri. 20 million would put it outside of the galaxy (and the nearest few galaxys too for that matter).
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Ugh... Here is a topic on reliability of subsystems, and half the thread is dedicated to debating the dispersion of heat in the vaccuum of space in a frikkin ARCADE SPACE COMBAT SIM?? Jeez!
Anyway, it seems my overloading ideas were thrown by the wayside. If you ask me, it'd be a GREAT thing to implement, as it would allow things like custom generators, putting out X energy per second, and having X tolerance for overload, not to mention gameplay.
Anyway, when do I get to see GeoMod? :D
/me runs away very, very fast.